Comparative Linguistic Research

Comparative Linguistic Research

The Role of Knowing of Source Language in Translation: A Case Study: Emerson's Translations from Hafiz's poetry

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
Mostafa Hosseini
Faculty Member
10.22084/rjhll.2025.31272.2387
Abstract
The present paper tries to introduce, criticize and analyze his translations of Hafez's poems. Emerson’s translations are scattered in his various works e.g. his poetry collections and his poetry notebooks. At first, Emerson's translations, which are found in four different sources, are briefly introduced and then are compared with their Persian equivalents. According to this research, Emerson's translations of Hafez's poetry can be divided into four groups. First, “literal translation”, Second, “combined translation”,Third, “peripheral translation”, . Four, “adaptation/free translation”, in these translations, Emerson takes the theme from Hafez and adds some lines to it and writes an almost new poem. In the end, ten examples of Emerson's translations – eight poems taken from Harold Bloom’s Collected Poems and Translations of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1994) and two items taken from the Emerson’s paper “Persian Poetry” (1857) – has been carefully reviewed and his misreadings, misunderstandings and incorrect translations have been identified.
Keywords
Hafiz
Emerson
Bloom
Purgestall
Subjects